FYI France (sm)(tm) -- books and libraries and reading,
on the Internet and otherwise, all located in France
-- see also fyifrance.com, or Facebook Jack Kessler's Wall
Several points of interest, for anyone with curiosity about or a passion for Paris, particularly its history... for sojourns or for daydreaming, this summer or anytime... Not a complete list: the moveable feast enjoys many locations, forever shifting -- but the following make useful additions to any visit, en-chair-et-en-os or virtual --
** Crypte archéologique du parvis Notre-Dame
The Roman city, Lutetia, unveiled and explained, as-revealed beneath the great plaza in front of Notre Dame and generally: dramatically presenting the maps and the reasoning which drove the ever-rational Romans to fortify this particular place, for fording the Seine, girding Gaul, and building the city...
Having visited this you will be able to see in your imagination these roots of Paris -- forever afterward, as you study the city, think about it, walk around, enjoy it -- the great north-south cardo maximus axis of the rues St. Martin & St. Jacques, the tiny mid-river island with its defenses, the road southward climbing the gentle hills carrying legions to Aquitaine, later on troops desperate to aid Martel against the Moors, later still seashell-bedecked pilgrims to Compostela...
Civic life began, for Paris, at this little river-ford Roman Empire provincial town, now revealed a few feet down beneath the square in front of the magnificent but much later medieval cathedral. Paris had humble but tough and enduring beginnings.
Also, it's cool down there, under the ground, sheltered from the sun within the "Crypte archéologique du parvis Notre-Dame" -- the moveable feast gets hot, in the summertime.
adresses --
Paris, ville antique (in French)
http://www.paris.culture.fr/
Paris, a Roman city (in English)
http://www.paris.culture.fr/en/
A set of good "Crypte Archéologique" fotos on Flicker (texts in English)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mytravelphotos/sets/72157603376622534/
Practical -- hours of opening etc. (in French, but websites generally are more dependable than print sources re. opening hours)
http://tinyurl.com/3v2q2vv
http://www.paris.fr/loisirs/musees-expos/musee-carnavalet-histoire-de-paris/ crypte-archeologique-du-parvis-notre-dame/rub_6468_stand_19971_port_14628
Practical -- brochure (in English)
http://www.paris.fr/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=83136
news --
"Et Lutèce devint Paris" (in French, but worth seeing by all for the illustrations & timeline & videos at the very least, both online at the link below and on-site in & beneath the City of Light)
[tr. JK] "'And Lutetia Became Paris'. May 13, 2011. A new exhibit in the Crypte Archéologique de Notre-Dame reveals the metamorphosis over time of what once was 4th century Paris."
http://tinyurl.com/6fkfyjw
http://www.paris.fr/loisirs/musees-expos/musee-carnavalet-histoire-de-paris/expositon-et-lutece-devint-paris-a-la-crypte-archeologique/rub_6468_actu_96242_port_14627
** Musée de Cluny
The groups of pilgrims climbing the Mont Ste. Geneviève on the road to Compostela grew more numerous...
Paris in the Middle Ages grew, and changed: a monument to the transition as telling as the parvis Notre Dame's crypte, with its Roman town and Gothic cathedral, is the Quartier Latin's Musée de Cluny, with its Roman baths and Medieval townhouse.
"Outside the walls", both the latter were were... The baths, in their Roman era, were over on the Left Bank safely-distant from the superior officers who, originally perhaps and later, ordered and disciplined things on the more closely-regulated island -- and the officers were a safer distance too, from their own regulations, when they crossed-over on the bridge for a visit to the baths -- the thermae were a place to relax, then, to indulge, to misbehave a little.
The Medieval era country house, too... Nowadays it is little and low, compared to its towering modern central city surroundings. The location once must have been bucolic, though, looking out over yards and gardens and vegetables and even pastures... remembering that Passy and the Champs Élysées still were "champs", much later, when Franklin and Jefferson lived there...
The "green" medieval views from the Musée de Cluny's upper-storey windows now must be imagined in movies, but they are an important part of historical Paris. They're no longer available in the Sorbonne neighborhood by 1615, but they're very much in evidence still just down the road, surrounding St. Germain, per the wonderful Mérian map of that date which my "iPad app" of that map shows so clearly -- vegetable gardens & orchards & fields & windmills -- so the older faubourg, in closer to the Ile, must have enjoyed such amenities and their associated dangers, not so long before.
adresses --
This is the "Musée national du Moyen Age" -- known by everyone as the "Musée de Cluny" -- located at the southeast corner of the Boul'Mich / Boul'St. Germain crossing, just down the hill and across the little square from the Sorbonne -- all students who visit Paris see it from the street, too few go inside to look, but it's well worth a visit.
Musée national du Moyen Age (in French)
http://www.musee-moyenage.fr/
Musée national du Moyen Age / National Museum of the Middle Ages (in English)
http://www.musee-moyenage.fr/ang/index.html
Exposition, "L'Epée. Usages, mythes et symboles", au Musée de Cluny / Exhibition, "The Sword. Its use, myths, and symbols", at the Musée de Cluny
http://tinyurl.com/4y2f6ao
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Exposition-LEp%C3%A9e-Usages-mythes-et-symbole s-au-Mus%C3%A9e-de-Cluny/202613793104522
news --
a small sampling of "Musée de Cluny" daily activities, ongoing throughout the summer --
Mercredi 8 juin
10h30 Atelier enfants (2h) Le vitrail
14h30 Visite conférence (1h) Les thermes antiques de Lutèce et leurs galeries souterraines
15h45 Visite exposition (1h) L'épée : Usages, mythes et symboles
Jeudi 9 juin
12h30 un mois / une oeuvre (1h) L'épée : Usages, mythes et symboles Présentation de l'exposition par Michel Huynh, conservateur en chef, commissaire de l'exposition
18h30 un mois / une oeuvre (1h) L'épée : Usages, mythes et symboles Présentation de l'exposition par Michel Huynh, conservateur en chef, commissaire de l'exposition
Vendredi 10 juin
11h00 Atelier parents-bébés (45 mn) Qui es-tu ?
Samedi 11 juin
10h00 Atelier parents-bébés (45 mn) Qui es-tu ?
10h30 Démonstrations d'escrime médiévale par la compagnie « De Taille et d'Estoc »
11h00 Atelier parents-bébés (45 mn) Qui es-tu ?
11h30 Visite thématique (1h30) Sculpture romane et gothique (XIIe-XIIIe siècles)
13h00 Atelier en famille (45 mn) « Toucher la pierre, toucher le bois »
14h00 Démonstrations d'escrime médiévale par la compagnie « De Taille et d'Estoc »
14h00 Visite en famille (1h30) Art, artistes-artisans au Moyen Âge
14h30 Atelier en famille (45 mn) « Toucher la pierre, toucher le bois »
15h45 Visite générale (1h30) L'hôtel des abbés de Cluny et les chefs-d'oeuvre du musée
16h00 Démonstrations d'escrime médiévale par la compagnie « De Taille et d'Estoc »
Dimanche 12 juin
10h30 Démonstrations d'escrime médiévale par la compagnie « De Taille et d'Estoc »
14h00 Démonstrations d'escrime médiévale par la compagnie « De Taille et d'Estoc »
16h00 Démonstrations d'escrime médiévale par la compagnie « De Taille et d'Estoc »
...
http://www.musee-moyenage.fr/documents/semaine_6_juin_2011.pdf
** Musée Carnavalet
La ville radieuse: many have dreamed of "designing" Paris, and this museum has collected many of those designs and dreams and displays them well -- to the latest visionaries, who may wonder at how immensely-grand the dreams in the past were, also to the skeptics who shake their heads knowingly over the gargantuan reality Paris now has become, and how different that is from anything ever dreamt for it.
"Paris"... now 12+ million people, plus daily commuters from as far away as Chartres, 18% of the national population, more Parisian than French and more trans-national than France -- and nowadays branchée 24/7, plugged into our bright new digital world, networking with London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai and other Global Cities, and the Silly Valley, and visiting formerly-nearby Lyon or Toulouse or Limoges only occasionally, and "en passant"... "Paris et le désert", plus ça change...
(Google's Ahmit Singhal pointed out -- only yesterday, at their "online search event", http://www.google.com/insidesearch/ -- that "mobiles" usage patterns, in global cities like Paris, increasingly reverse traditional work patterns -- that nowadays we use our "mobiles" to "seek knowledge" on our lunch hours, and at night, times when previously we would leave-the-office -- so some places & people truly have become a "24/7 world".)
adresses --
Musée Carnavalet -- Histoire de Paris (in French)
http://tinyurl.com/3qhg8f9
http://www.paris.fr/loisirs/musees-expos/musee-carnavalet-histoire-de-paris/p6468brochure (in English)
http://tinyurl.com/3sp3b6z
http://www.paris.fr/viewmultimediadocument?multimediadocument-id=88163
Musée Carnavalet -- collections / départments (in French)
http://tinyurl.com/437bf6g
http://www.paris.fr/loisirs/Portal.lut?page_id=6638&document_type_id=4&document_id=19798&portlet_id=15100
news --
[tr. JK] "'Eglise Saint-Sulpice, les coulisses d'une restauration' / 'The Church of Saint-Sulpice, backstage at a restoration'. May 18, 2011. Free Exhibit from June 1 through July 3, 1011. Salles d'exposition and salle 62. This exhibit at the Musée Carnavalet explains the important restoration project -- undertaken in 2006 and completed in December 2010 -- for the north tower of one of the largest churches in Paris..."
** Musée, Conservatoire national des arts et metiers
What really happened -- after the dreams, of the éclaircissement, what happened but had not been so clear, in the rationalist thinking which predominated back then -- industrialization, the great machines, the creativity, and the very different results of the confrontation of all that with "government" in 18th and 19th c. France as vs. Germany, and the UK, and the US and Japan and other places... although current events are suggesting that the jury may still be out on all those outcomes, it seems...
And for fans of Umberto Eco, the pendulum of Foucault still is there, masquerading its mysteries -- and the Statue of Liberty is there too, near its sister-sur-Seine -- in the little church which is the conservatoire's CNAM museum.
Be sure to make the trek upstairs, for the fabulous roof-beams, and the fascinating collection of scientific instruments -- Pascal's "calculating machine", for anyone with digital inclinations -- all displayed beneath the brave banner,
"avant 1750, l'état des lieux, l'homme prend les dimensions du monde / the situation pre-1750, Man sizes up the world"
-- the terrible twentieth century changed much...
And the story here is far older than Eco, older than Foucault, the story goes back to frankincense, see below...
adresses --
Practical -- (in French)
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee.php?P=31&lang=fra&flash=f
Practical -- (in English)
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee.php?P=31&lang=ang&flash=f
[tr. JK] "'Visite virtuelle du Musée' / 'Virtual visit to the museum'" -- you have to see this... particularly if you like Eco's book... (Flash App)
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee.php?P=1005&lang=fra&flash=f
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/visitevirtuelle/
[tr. JK] "'L'encens et la vapeur' / 'Frankincense and Steam'". The story of the Musée des arts et métiers of the CNAM site, from the 6th century, "From the Mérovingians to the Royal Foundation of 1059" -- to the end of the 20th century, "Modern Times"
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee.php?P=122&lang=fra&flash=f
news --
summer events -- wild times, at the Musée des arts et métiers of the CNAM! -- all fun, mostly un-translatable -- "activiste codeur"(?)... -- so, if you will be in Paris en-chair-et-en-os, essayez-le --
Technologies au quotidien - 28 juin au 13 Juillet 2011
Le 5ème épisode du cycle proposé en partenariat avec la Gaîté lyrique invite l'activiste codeur américain Evan Roth / Graffiti Research Lab. Au programme : résidence, atelier et conférences...
Forum des utopies - Jeudi 23 juin 2011 de 17h à 21h30
Dans le cadre du festival Futur en Seine, le Musée des arts et métiers accueille le Forum des utopies, une programmation proposée par le Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire pour la Sociologie Economique, Lise (Cnam/CNRS). Depuis les expérimentations fouriéristes jusqu'aux utopies de la libre circulation du savoir d'aujourd'hui, comment nos représentations d'un autre travail possible ont-elles évolué ? Au programme : une table ronde sur la thématique Le travail : utopies d'hier et de demain, un parcours au travers des collections du musée L'homme augmenté : une utopie qui traverse l'histoire, ainsi que l'installation vidéo Cyborgs dans la brume réalisée par les artistes Stéphane Degoutin et Gwenola Wagon...
Fête de la musique : le parvis du Musée aux couleurs cubaines !
Pour fêter la Musique le 21 juin, le Musée reçoit l'orchestre cubain Wil Campa pour un concert festif sur le parvis. Une occasion inédite de découvrir la salsa cubaine dans la pure tradition des rues de La Havane et de Trinidad ! Composé de 14 musiciens et chanteurs et de 4 danseurs professionnels de la Grande Ecole de Salsa de La Havane, l'orchestre se produit pour la première fois en Europe. Pour l'occasion, Wil Campa a enregistré 3 titres de chanson française, dont deux chansons en hommage à Serge Gainsbourg pour la commémoration des 20 ans de sa disparition : "Elisa", "L'eau à la bouche" et "Déshabillez-moi"...
SUPRA* Vivez l'expérience Supra ! - Samedi 18 juin 2011 de 10h à 18h
SUPER HYPER MEGA SUPRA
Vivez l'expérience Supra!
A l'occasion du centenaire de la découverte de la SUPRAconductivité, venez découvrir les propriétés fascinantes des SUPRAconducteurs et leurs applications industrielles. Une fois refroidis à très basses températures, parfois jusqu'à -250°C, certains matériaux conduisent le courant électrique sans aucune résistance et sont capables de faire léviter les aimants... Ce sont les supraconducteurs ! 100 ans après la découverte du phénomène par Kamerlingh Onnes, les chercheurs des universités Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris Diderot, Paris-Sud, de l'ESPCI ParisTech, de l'ENS et du CNRS vous font vivre les grandes expériences de la supraconductivité et vous projettent dans un monde fascinant...
http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee.php?P=214&lang=fra&flash=f
** Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Bibliothèque national de France
Soirées... One entire aspect of Paris is its "evenings": its gatherings -- whether afternoons or evenings or very late into the night -- never mornings, for Paris soirées are alcoholic and exhausting and that doesn't match with mornings -- but Paris gatherings discuss and debate everything, they are where a young américain can learn about a previous "Vietnam War", and about Parisian women, and a young américaine about Parisian men, it is where the movies of Woody Allen are debated endlessly, and the oulipiènnes literary merits of Lady Gaga's poetry and évenements are dismissed and defended, "attitude" becomes a science, where conversation & communication are the reigning arts.
It is a very old art-form itself, in Paris, the "soirée" with its animated and occasionally-cruel and always-exciting conversations. The 19th century's version of it began right here, in fact, at the Arsenal -- Victor Hugo, see below...
adresses --
Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal
http://fyifrance.com/fyi1pli3.htm#Arsenal (in English -- with that story about Victor Hugo...)
http://www.bnf.fr/fr/la_bnf/sites/a.site_bibliotheque_arsenal.html (in French)
http://www.bnf.fr/fr/la_bnf/anx_autres_sites/a.arsenal_salle_lecture.html (guided tours of la bib de l'Arsenal! -- in French)
** and, NEW!, Paris Ipad Apps...
Among many extraordinary Paris history online applications now, most interesting and some even useful, are several excellent iPad applications: and France has joined the iPad craze... needed-knowledge for that Paris soirée "cocktail", then...
The best Paris iPad app I've found so far is:
"DK Eyewitness Travel, Paris"
-- suitable for projection and classroom use, this -- one can view, through that beautiful little glass screen, very good photos and interesting descriptions, and nice maps, and often-beautiful site plan drawings of major Paris monuments -- good organization and very attractive mise en page... no reliure on which to comment, sadly, the era of "marocain" is grown-brittle and is fading...
** National Geographic Magazine, their February 2011 issue
In-print, on-iPad, also on-iPhone, plus there are online sur-la-toile extras -- the National Geographic has become very multimedia --
This American society's magazine, with their always-excellent visual sense, presents,
"Under Paris : you'll find bones, stones, miles of tunnels, and legal -- and illegal -- tourism"
[excerpt:]
" Getting There: It involves manholes and endless ladders.
" What to Wear: Miner's helmets are good.
" What to do: Work, party, paint or just explore the dark web of tunnels.
"By Neil Shea, Photograph by Stephen Alvarez
"The cab glides through Saturday morning. The great avenues are quiet, the shops closed. From a bakery comes the scent of fresh bread. At a stoplight a blur of movement draws my attention. A man in blue coveralls is emerging from a hole in the sidewalk. His hair falls in dreadlocks, and there is a lamp on his head. Now a young woman emerges, holding a lantern. She has long, slender legs and wears very short shorts. Both wear rubber boots, both are smeared with beige mud, like a tribal decoration. The man shoves the iron cover back over the hole and takes the woman's hand, and together they run grinning down the street..."
It's a view of Paris of which few who know and love the place, including native Parisians, ever really have heard... although they may have suspected...
I remember Fellini's scene in his "Roma", where he and the director of the new Rome subway works are riding together in a subterranean cart, the latter complaining that every time they dig they run into something new, something "Phoenician", or "Greek", or... his subway layout plan, it will look like a plate of spaghetti!
Paris has this about its past and in its bones and foundations, too. Victor Hugo loved it, remember his caressing descriptions in Notre Dame de Paris... Paris always reveals surprises, things you never knew were there, things which once were there but are no longer, things of which you've never dreamed or had nightmares -- and it's always in motion, ever-changing, the moveable feast.
The National Geographic piece evokes all this well, to the great surprise of many who thought they themselves knew all, about Paris -- see both the fascinating February 2011 print magazine issue, and their more extensive online digital version below --
adresse --
National Geographic -- Under Paris
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/02/paris-underground/shea-text
** And, finally, Paris walks -- an institution of European Culture since at least the Middle Ages...
The Left Bank -- begin at the BnF Tolbiac, see the Arènes de Lutèce, stop at the Musée de Cluny, the rue de la Huchette, St. Germain des Prés, the bords de la Seine, the Invalides, the Eiffel Tower... and,
The Quartier Latin -- by day
The Quartier Latin -- by night
The Jardin de Luxembourg -- on any hot Paris summer afternoon
The Champs -- see the tourists...
The boulevards -- flânez...
The museums -- a lifetime
The bibliothèques -- another
Visit every church -- yet another, and every one will offer a small concert series, in the summertime
Walk the canal, see the new Opera, and the old one, both for the buildings as much as the city walks
And hike up to Montmartre, early morning or late at night or both, and watch sunrises and sunsets from the grand steps up there
One way in which the digital never will beat the virtual, is city walks in Paris.
But... the digital does comes close, nowadays: on GoogleEarth -- and on GoogleMaps -- and WikiMapia does an excellent and very interesting job as well --
http://earth.google.com
http://maps.google.com
http://wikimapia.com
Each of the above now can be experienced in very interesting new ways: for example, drag the Google StreetView "little man" -- upper left hand corner of the map, in http://maps.google.com -- to the map, and try each of the walks mentioned above -- it is amazing how much more there is to know of Paris, via the virtual reality version of it available globally & anytime & online now.
Bonne route!
Jack Kessler, kessler@well.com
FYI France (sm)(tm) -- books and libraries and reading,
on the Internet and otherwise, all located in France
-- see also fyifrance.com, or Facebook Jack Kessler's Notes
